The Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) rejected a Westinghouse-Toshiba nuclear reactor design because of concerns with its shield building.
The shield building protects the reactor from severe events including tornadoes and earthquakes. In a report issued last Thursday, the NRC stated that Westinghouse “has not demonstrated that certain structural components of the revised AP1000 shield building can withstand design basis loads.” The AP1000 is the leading design among reactors in the U.S.
The NRC is seeking modifications and new testing to demonstrate the shield’s performance and safety.
In a press release, Westinghouse has …

On his blog, Robert Reich, former Secretary of Labor in the Clinton Administration, predicts that any attempt by the EPA to regulate CO2 and other greenhouse gases (GHGs) will result in a flood of litigation by the fossil-fuel industries that will continue for years.
Reich notes that the Obama administration has attempted to use the specter of EPA regulation as a threat to move cap & trade legislation through the Congress before the Copenhagen meeting. Since that is now highly unlikely, Mr. Reich advises the administration to put the …

It is looking more and more unlikely that the U.S. will agree to cut greenhouse gases in Copenhagen according to the chief U.S. negotiator to the climate change talks, Jonathan Pershing.  Pershing is quoted in Bloomberg as saying “It will be extraordinarily difficult for the U.S. to commit to a specific number in the absence of action from Congress.”

Senator Barbara Boxer, head of the Environment and Public Works Committee and Senator John Kerry, head of the Foreign Relations Committee are presenting their version of climate change - cap and trade- legislation in the Senate Wednesday.
The bill call for a 20% reduction in carbon emissions from 2005 levels by 2020 and 83% reduction by 2050. These levels are more aggressive than those contained in the House bill passed in June.
The bill contains a provision that will attempt to control speculators in a newly-created carbon trading market. …

New satellite data from NASA indicate that the ice sheets on Greenland and western Antarctica are melting faster than scientists originally predicted. In fact, the British team of scientists who studied the data found that the rate of thinning of the ice sheets in parts of the Antarctic is 50% higher during the period from 2003 to 2007 than from 1995 to 2003. AP
The study’s lead author, Hamish Pritchard, quoted by the AP , noted that “the key problem is not heat in the air, but water near the ice …

The United Nations is hosting a climate change meeting in New York this week to help pave the way for the December Copenhagen summit.
European ministers, however, are lowering expectations on reaching a comprehensive greenhouse gas reducing treaty.
According the Financial Times, “European Union officials have grown increasingly frustrated at the U.S. stance, saying it has fallen short on both its level of ambition to reduce emissions and on offering aid to developingnations.”
To the EU, it appears that the Obama Administration is so totally immersed in health care issues that the …

IBM is working toward a tenfold improvement in battery storage with its research on a future generation lithium-air battery, the New York Times reports.
Winfried Wilcke, an IBM physicist and program director at the IBM Almaden Research Center, said “I strongly believe that climbing this Mount Everest of ten times better, given resources, time and patience, will happen . . . and it deserves a Manhattan-like effort.,” New York Times
IBM sponsored a conference at its Almaden Research Center in San Jose last month with battery experts to discuss the promises and …

A few weeks ago, scientists announced that they discovered 350 new species in the Eastern Himalayas. There were lovely pictures of a flying frog and the world’s tiniest deer.
Now a team from the BBC Natural History Unit have discovered a new giant rat species in the rainforest of Papua New Guinea and there are “lovely” pictures of the new rat. Well, beauty is in the eye of the beholder.

In a recent New York Times, Kate Murphy profiles Dan Phillips, who about 12 years ago, started building low income housing from materials other people considered trash.
Mr. Phillips is a self-taught carpenter, electrician and plumber, who scours the landfills for discarded building materials. He estimates that “80 percent of the materials are salvaged from other construction projects, hauled out of trash heaps or just picked up from the side of the road.”
To ensure that his designs are sound and will meet all local building codes, Mr. Phillips consults with professional …

The National Biodiesel Board reported that two thirds of the U.S. biodiesel production capacity remains unused due to the economic recession and the decline of oil prices over the past year.